If you can't get to the spas of Thailand for
spiritual rejuvenation, here's a tip: visit the Shikshapatri website. The
Shiksha what? If you are one of the millions of Swaminarayan Hindus who
walk this earth, you will know that the 212 verses of the Shikshpatri
outline a lifestyle borne of the essence of Hindu spiritual codes. And now
the beauty of the original manuscript can be seen on the web thanks to an
inspired partnership in the UK. Drift here,
slowly and serenely, for the story.
Singapore's NLB to help establish design
library in Thailand
Being widely considered the best public library
system in Asia, and certainly the most innovative and technologically
advanced, has paid dividends for Singapore's National Library Board.
Thailand is to build a Design Reference Library and has contracted NLB to
help with its establishment and training of staff. The new library, with a
reported budget of USD11.6 million, will enable the Thai public to access
current knowledge on creative design and innovation.
Here has
the story.
Singapore granted library patent
EliMS, an RFID based library management front end
software, was recently granted a patent by the United States Patent and
Trademark Office. The joint owners of the patent are ST LogiTrack Pte Ltd
and the National Library Board. EliMS is a nifty solution that ensures
speedy book borrowing and return. Turn here for
more.
How does legal deposit of web publications
and websites work?
How are publishers coping with archiving their
digital publications for posterity? Multinational publishers have the
means to preserve and archive. But smaller publishers? If they go bust,
are bought out, or the owner retires, what happens to all those
manuscripts in pdf, html, Word and Pagemaker? In Britain, the British
Library meets with publishers to discuss this issue within the context of
the UK's Legal Deposit Act of 2003. More here
.
Chemistry's most wanted
Well, why not? If the FBI can have its most wanted,
what not chemists? Was the most requested paper about the chemistry of
falling in love? Was the most requested author Dr. Ion Valence? Did the
Patagonian Journal of Paleochemistry receive the highest number of hits?
Discover the hot ones here.
Open access: is it as good as it thinks it
is?
It is essential, says a recent report issued on
behalf of the OECD. But inconsistency in government policies and within
the scientific community itself hinders the open access vision. The
authors look at policies that governments need to consider and identifies
inconsistent data access policies among nations, agencies in the same
country and among scientific disciplines. The entire report is on the web.
Find out where here.
Open access: good and getting
better!
ACCESS reported a year ago on
the Directory of Open Access Journals at Lund University. It's come a long
way. The new version of DOAJ includes records at article level and
a search functionality for all open access journals. Of the 1,100
journals in the directory, 270 can be searched by article. Put another way, 46,000 articles
can be searched through DOAJ.
here
has the full story.
A feast for the eyes and
mind
If
there is one discipline that the web is perfect for, it
is art. Text, images, sound, animation… publishers and museums have a feast of
opportunity to display their collections to the entire world. ARTstor is about to
unveil its digital library this summer. 300,000 images from far flung cultures
will grow to half a million by summer 2006. Among the
digital collections providing source material is the Huntington Archive of Asian Art. Want to know
if you can use ARTstor?
here
has the answer.
Big and getting
bigger
Within six months of its launch, the AIP/APS
Scitation consortium in China has grown from 40 to 67 universities.
Working with CALIS, AIP leased dedicated bandwidth directly from CERNET to
provide high speed connectivity for publishers whose journals are on
Scitation. Read how it happened here.
Elsevier
establishes scientific publishing partnership with leading faculty
members of Tsinghua University
Beijing office opened to
support marketing and publishing
programmes
Elsevier publishers and Tsinghua University
have cemented a new
publishing partnership that will help encourage scientific and
technical growth in China and greatly improve the ways in which
Chinese scientific and engineering advances are disseminated and
communicated to the international research
communities.
Launched on the
24th
May, the initial phase of this partnership will involve
20 of Elsevier's international scientific journals. Each will
appoint associate editors from among the most distinguished
scientists and engineers within Tsinghua University who will
assist in the management of input and ensure that the best of
Chinese science can be made available globally. Elsevier is
also keen to extend this programme to include leading
researchers at other institutes within
China.
First
editorial responsibility goes to Tsinghua
University
In this groundbreaking new
partnership, Elsevier will hand first editorial responsibility
for assessing Chinese submissions to the Tsinghua University
board members prior to the full international review process.
They will review for scientific merit manuscripts submitted to
Elsevier journals by Chinese researchers. Those manuscripts
considered of strong enough quality will be recommended for
final peer review. Where there are difficulties, for example
with language, some guidance will be given on ways to improve
and make a new submission.
Elsevier and
Tsinghua also finalized arrangements for the journal,
Tsinghua Science & Technology
. The aim is to make its content available
internationally via Elsevier's key electronic service,
ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com) and to then explore
co-publishing arrangements for this and other projects.
This is an important strategic
partnership for both Elsevier and Tsinghua University. As Arie
Jongejan, CEO of Elsevier, Science & Technology,
reflected, "Elsevier is very excited to be working more
closely with Tsinghua University to help ensure best
quality of publication of research from within China. We
believe our company, as the world's leading scientific
publisher, can play a key role in helping top Chinese
scientists extend their influence in the world of science and
contribute further to human progress overall. We expect to be
working closer and closer with leading researchers from
Tsinghua as well as other leading institutes and universities
in China and particularly welcome this new arrangement."
Professor Gongke, Vice President of
Tsinghua, also commented, "This is a very good thing for
Tsinghua, through which we should make full use of the
opportunity for a proper arrangement bringing together all the
recommended guest editors to talk about how to increase the
academic influence of Tsinghua on the world stage."
Official ceremony marks opening of
Beijing office
In addition to
this new editorial partnership, Elsevier, now known as "" in
Chinese, opened its Beijing office on 26th
May. The opening was marked by an
official ceremony in Beijing attended by Arie Jongejan, and
International Managing Director of Health Sciences, Jose
Wehnes, as well as a number of distinguished representatives
from the Chinese academic, government and medical sectors. The
decision to open an office in Beijing is the result of a
number of new initiatives within mainland China, coupled with
the continued and growing demand from the Chinese research
communities for access to Elsevier's 1,800 journals, book
titles and portfolio of electronic products. The Beijing
office houses marketing and customer service staff from Reed
Elsevier's scientific & technical, health sciences and
legal & business divisions.
Elsevier has
been active in China for the past 10 years. Since 2000 the
company has been in a successful e-content hosting partnership
with the Universities of Shanghai Jiaotong and Tsinghua. The
demand for electronic access to key research findings has
grown rapidly and with these hosting partnerships, Elsevier
has been able to offer the Chinese research communities fast
and stable access to its journals, which include key titles
such as The Lancet, Cell, and Brain
Research
.
As Yang Yi, Vice Director of
Tsinghua University Library said of the partnership, "Elsevier
is a world famous academic publisher and the journals
published are of very high quality and editorial standard. The
Science Direct Onsite Servers in the library of Tsinghua
University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Library have
solved the problem of international internet access fees for
the users. The ScienceDirect database is therefore welcomed by
a large number of researchers within China."
Ribbon-cutting
ceremony led by Arie Jongejan, Elsevier CEO for Science&
Technology with Frank Mizuno, Managing Director North Asia,
Lexis Nexis on his left and Jose Wehnes, Managing Director,
International, Elsevier Health Sciences on his
right
Translate medical textbooks into
Chinese
In addition to
these hosting partnerships, Elsevier has been working with
Chinese publishing companies, such as Science Press, Peoples
Medical Publishing House, and most recently with Peking
University Medical Publishing House, to translate into
Chinese, medical information from its best selling text and
reference books. The most recent development has been the
Chinese translation of The Lancet
, thereby making available to doctors throughout
China what is arguably the world's most prestigious medical
journal. This is a result of a partnership with Xi'an
Publishing Corporation.
These
translation initiatives have been very well received in China
and as Wang Debing, President of the Chinese Association of
Medical Universities and Colleges and Vice President of the
Chinese Medical Association of Doctors, has said, "Elsevier's
medical science, medical education and health science products
take over 60 percent of the English-language medical
publications' market share. Its famous
books such as The Cecil Textbook of Medicine and
Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary
and its prestigious journal list are already well
known by the Chinese medical communities and health science
professionals. Elsevier sincerely wants to provide
a good service to Chinese medical specialists and make a
significant contribution to the exchange and communication of
medical research."
Awards for outstanding medical
students
To show its commitment to medical
education in China, in 2003 Elsevier launched The
Elsevier-Peking University Health Science Center Medical
Education Award. This is a three year programme in which
awards are granted to outstanding students across the medical
disciplines. USD10,000 was awarded to 40 students in 2003 as
well as supplying each of them with Elsevier medical textbooks
for their studies. Under another special scheme, Elsevier has
been making its Health Science medical journals available to
Chinese healthcare workers at special prices in order to
ensure they are affordable by individual doctors and rural
hospitals.
Distinguished guests and staff of
Elsevier raising a toast to mark the occasion
Summing up the recent Elsevier
developments within China, Elsevier CEO for Science &
Technology, Arie Jongejan commented, "The opening of the new
office in Beijing, our recent translation agreements, and the
partnership with Tsinghua University, illustrate Reed
Elsevier's long term investment and commitment to the
development of Chinese scientific research and our customer
base as a whole. In addition to working with Tsinghua
University, we will be looking to develop similar partnerships
with other leading Chinese research institutes, thereby
fulfilling our goal of supporting and stimulating the
international distribution and visibility of Chinese research
findings. In addition to this, our Chinese e-content hosting
partnerships should have a significant impact on the improved
accessibility and availability of scientific information
within the research institutes. We have opened the Beijing
office as a means of offering strong local support to this
growing accessibility as well as continued high quality
service to our Chinese customer base."
First
editorial responsibility goes to Tsinghua
University
" in
Chinese, opened its Beijing office on 26th
May. The opening was marked by an
official ceremony in Beijing attended by Arie Jongejan, and
International Managing Director of Health Sciences, Jose
Wehnes, as well as a number of distinguished representatives
from the Chinese academic, government and medical sectors. The
decision to open an office in Beijing is the result of a
number of new initiatives within mainland China, coupled with
the continued and growing demand from the Chinese research
communities for access to Elsevier's 1,800 journals, book
titles and portfolio of electronic products. The Beijing
office houses marketing and customer service staff from Reed
Elsevier's scientific & technical, health sciences and
legal & business divisions.
